Let Missouri Teachers Teach the Truth!

The Missouri legislature has made it a priority in 2023 to enact a so-called "Parents' Bill of Rights", with a number of bills that dictate what topics may be taught in Missouri's K-12 schools, banning lessons on equity or true historical events. The bills include: SB918 (Hoskins), HB2160 (Baker), SB770 (Brattin), SB902 (Schroer), SB1181 (Koenig), HJR185 (Christofanelli), and SJR95 (Trent). The bills prohibit the teaching of what is often mistakenly called "critical race theory". The bills ban any teaching that may be construed to make students or parents feel that "individuals, by virtue of their race, ethnicity, color or national origin, bear collective guilt and are inherently responsible for actions committed in the past by others." In a State where our teacher pay is ranked 50th in the Nation, these bills would only make it harder to teach. It will be another hindrance to the growing problem of trying to keep our teachers and attract more qualified people to teach. These bills will not improve our State's education system, they will take us further backwards. No employers or families will be attracted to come here and those who are able, will leave. This will be detrimental to our State's economy and to the overall intelligence of our citizens. Aside from the burden on teachers and our State, these bills would harm our students. "Critical race theory" is not actually taught in Missouri's K-12 schools. It has become a buzz word to mean any kind of equity education or teaching of true historical events. It is just a political strategy to get more voters to the polls. All students must be taught the truth, painful and uncomfortable as it may sometimes be. We can no longer base our history knowledge on a lie. We must trust students to be able to establish their own perspectives on history. Students and children cannot be manipulated into believing a false history by banning conversations in the classroom about anything that makes certain parents feel uncomfortable. Many of our schools are already not teaching the full history of America, yet racism and inequality still exists, so clearly this approach has not worked. We must learn from our history, or be doomed to repeat it. We will not repeat it.